The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-03-12
Communications.
FIFTY YEARS AGO AND NOW.
BY WILLIAM MARSHALL.
(Christianburg, o.


kind. well remember the first Uni
versalist sermon ever heard. 1t was
preached at my fathers house in the
year 1885, by Rev. George Messenger,
who then lived in Springfield. When
the appointment was given out it crea-
ted as much sensation in our village as
though a great show was coming.
Everybody was anxious to see what
Universalist preacher "looked like"
When the evening of the appointment
arrived, the people filled the house. All
eyes were riveted on Mr.. Messenger who
preached a sermon on the final holiness
and happiness of all mankind. 1 re-
member my father thought it was a
good sermon; but many others thought
it was dangerous doctrine to preach,
originating with the devil, and should
be suppressed, as it licensed men to
sin.
Since then fifty years have passed
away, and time has wrought great
changes in the minds and hearts of the
people. The old-fashioned hell-fire and
birthstone sermons hear no more; the
birthstone is consumed and the fire has
gone out; they have instituted other
and milder forms of future punishment;
while a great many repudiate eternal
punishment as ofheathen origin. l re-
joice that 1 have lived to see the dawn
of brighter day when many of the best
minds in Europe and America are pro-
testing in the name of all that is sacred
and dear in the thought of God and re-
| ligion, against the heathenish doctrine
of eternal misery.
Rev. John Foster, the celebrated
Baptist divine and scholar, said of this
doctrine: 81 find myself utterly I'M
able to reconcile the idea of endless suf-
fering with the divine goodness" DR..
Thomas Dick, in one of his letters
dated Dundee, Scotland, Feb. 10, 1849,
remarks: "When l consider the limited
duration of man, can hardly bring my
self to believe that the sins of a few
fieeting years are be punished through
out duration that has no end, more
especially when it is declared, more
than score of times, that the mercy
of God endureth forever. and his tender
mercies are1Byer all his works" DR..
J. D. Shaw, of the NJ E. church South,
also bears testimony: 81 have been
led to doubt the eternity of future pun
ishment upon the question of rendering
to finite creature upon the abuse of
Interpretation, an infinite punishment"
Bishop r. S. Fosters sermon, preached
st. Luke's church, New York, May 25.
1878: Superstition begrimes the char
acter of God; it sets him forth in every
hideous conception of which, it would
seem, the mind of man is capable; it
clothes him with an aspect of utter ter
r0r and adherence, and popular Christ
ian theology falls but little short of the
hideous portraiture given of God by the
gross superstitions of ignorant and ter
ror-sticken men. From many a Christ
ian pulpit he has been so represented
as to chill the blood and make the heart
stand still with terror, as if he were
monster who created only that he might
have the delight of destroying who be-
get children only that he might devour
them with memorable cruelty in their
helplessness and frailty; as if he took
knowledge of the sins of men only that
he might spy out their infrmities and
their sins and hasten to their destruc-
ton; as if it required infinite plead
lngs, infinite repentances and humil-
iations that his erring children of earth
might be restored to his favor. Many
time l have been appalled, and terri
fed as have listened to utterances that
seemed to clothe the heavens with pale
ness, and hell voracious as if it would
swallow us up. Such is not. the represen-
tatlon OF God given in the holy Scrip
ture." 1 could fill pages with the names
of such men, but it is not necessary.
Cicero, one of the most learned and
eloquent of the heather orators, in his
sixth GRAFTON, says it was on this &C
count that "the ancients invented their
internal punishments of the dead; to
keep the wicked in some awe in this
life, who, without them, would have
no dread of death itself"
Strabo, the Greek writer, speaks thus:
ut is impossible to govern women and
the gross body of the people, and to
keep them pious, holy and virtuOus by
the precepts of philosophy. This can
only be done by the fear of the gods,
which is raised and supported by an
Gent fctions and modern prodigies."
When we consider that the Scriptures
of the Old Testament are founded on
traditions handed down to us from the
rudest and most uncultivated stages of |
barbarism, ages before the art of print |
ing or writing had been discovered, it
would be the most marvellous of all
things if some Of those traditions had
not been tinctured with an unloving
and therefore an ungodly spirit. That
such were Christ's views we learn from
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